The Gender Wage Gap In The Arts

Transcript:

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We heard a lot during the presidential campaign about the wage gap, the fact that women often earn less than men for the same kinds of work. Hillary Clinton pushed that issue, and she lost. But it remains a reality in many people’s lives.

And we have new information about the wage gap in a field where many people might imagine that they favor gender equality. NPR’s social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam is here. Hi, Shankar.

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.

INSKEEP: What’s the field?

VEDANTAM: We’re talking about the arts, Steve, everything from photography to fine arts, musicians, choreographers. There’s been a lot of work in the social sciences exploring the gender wage gap in other fields, but not much attention to the arts. I was speaking with Danielle Lindemann – she’s a sociologist at Lehigh University – along with her co-authors Carly Rush and Steven Tepper. They’ve analyzed wage disparities in the arts.